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René Lafoix
In the short story The Sheikh and the Greek, René Lafoix was a master smuggler who operated under the guise of Sheikh Abd-el-Ahmud. Lafoix had come to the Red Sea region some twenty years before the events in the story. A former French secret service agent, he had then developed some profitable side lines in pearls, hashish and slaves. His typical modus operandi was to obtain drugs from Greece, transport them overland to the Arabian Red Sea coast and then rush them across to Egypt in dhows, which would then return with slaves. A clever and conceited man, the Royal Navy had been trying to intercept his shipments for years but had failed to catch him with anything incriminating--a fact which he advertised by writing a book detailing his exploits. Biggles first heard of the Sheikh through his agent in Alexandria, a Greek named Constantine Stampoulos. Biggles had wanted to sell the pearls which Li Chi had earlier given him in The Oriental Touch. Stampoulos saw the pearls and made a pitch for them to sell the pearls to his principal, the Sheikh, instead. The Sheikh had, according to Stampoulos, the finest collection of pearls in teh Red Sea area and was enormously rich. He could offer a price far better than Biggles could fetch in Alexandria. The profit Biggles would make would far outweigh the added expense Biggles would incur in flying down to the Sheikh's residence at El Tuara, some 500 miles away, on the Hejaz (the Arabian Red Sea Coast). Biggles and Algy were persuaded and forthwith flew Stampoulos to El Tuara in their Vickers Vandal. The first meeting with the Sheikh did not go well. He offered a price far below what Biggles believed the pearls were worth. Biggles, disgusted by the offer, turned to leave. Stampoulos now asked Biggles if he would consider giving the Sheikh a passage to the town of Azir on the Egyptian coast as he was anxious to get there quickly on business. Biggles, not wanting to have anymore to do with these two, declined the request and left. Shortly after leaving El Tuara, Biggles discovered that his pearls had been switched for some cheap ones--something which probably happened while the Sheikh was pretending to examine them. An outraged BIggles put down on an island nearby to consider how to recover his property. Just at this time, a British destroyer, H.M.S. Scud approached. Biggles was taken on board for questioning as he had, in fact, landed in a restricted area. Fortunately, Captain Watkins, in command, discovered that Biggles was a former squadron mate of his younger brother. He briefed Biggles about the criminal backgrounds of Stampoulos and Lafoix. Watkins was certain that the pitch about buying pearls was a blind. Stampoulos must have heard that Biggles had an aircraft and had made the offer so that he could gain a quick passage down to El Tuara to warn Lafoix that the Royal Navy had thrown a cordon around him with the intent of catching him. An aircraft would also have provided Lafoix with the only means of evading the naval blockade. Biggles and Watkins now worked out a plan to recover the pearls as well as catch Lafoix with incriminating evidence. The Vickers Vandal was first fitted with a machine gun borrowed from the destroyer. This was then flown to El Tuara where Biggles gave a firepower demonstration to Stampoulos and Lafoix. This, plus the added suggestion that British aircraft and gunboats were also available on call, was enough to persuade the two criminals to accept Biggles' offer: the return of the pearls with a hundred pounds in gold, in exchange for an air passage to Azir. After putting down at Azir, Lafoix and Stampoulos were alarmed to discover that a British destroyer had docked in the harbour. Biggles assured them this was a coincidence, and in any case, the any questions the authorities would pose would be for the aircrew to answer. However, if they wished to allay suspicions, Stampoulos and Lafoix could pretend to be their servants. This they readily agreed to and they took one suitcase each and proceeded to follow Biggles and Algy ashore. Watkins now appeared on the scene and asked what Stampoulos and Lafoix had in their bags. Saying that it was nothing, Lafoix confidently threw his bag open, only to find a load of hashish in it! This was enough evidence, it seemed, for Lafoix and Stampoulos to be arrested. The story does not detail what happened to them, or whether they managed to get a clever enough lawyer to get them out of what was, after all, a set up. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Interwar era characters